


The Queen of Grimmuald Place

by GoodOmensAndBadPress



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 00:36:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14581098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodOmensAndBadPress/pseuds/GoodOmensAndBadPress
Summary: Walburga Black was not born to be a mother





	The Queen of Grimmuald Place

Walburga Black was not born to be a mother.

Married at 18 to her second cousin, a man to whom she was supposed to devote her life an attention to. Suddenly her fiery Slytherin ambition was no longer her defining trait but a nuisance. The rules were rigid, made for somebody else and could no longer be bent to her advantage.

Women are supposed to have children and look after the house.

Good wives don’t have opinions; they have solutions to their husband’s troubles.

But how could she be a good wife when her partner was a weak-willed pathetic man, with no drive or wit. If she was a roaring fire he was a snuffed out matchstick, he added nothing to her.  
Faced with a life of limits and restrictions; a temper that constantly boiled under the surface, poison sitting at the tip of her tongue, If the only amusement she gained was from the torture of her captor, prison guard, _husband_ , then so be it. To watch him squirm under her stern gaze, to meekly excuse himself, head bowed, as it should be in her presence. Who could be bored when watching the hours tick by while he hid in his study, not going to bed because of the viper that lay in wait for him, a stealth hunter that liked to play with her prey before going in for the kill. She was a rose with more thorns than flowers, a black widow with venom to spare.

As a child, she dreamt of armies and kingdoms, politics and monarchy. She was a queen, an empress, a goddess. People would travel from the corner of the earth to kiss her rings. She would be a kind goddess, but no doubt a powerful one and those who stood in her way would crumble to sand under her gaze. It never mattered how she got there only the golden throne on which she would sit at the end. But that was the past. Now true power was a million miles away in someone else’s hands, her childhood desires snatched from under her. But she could still be queen, even if her kingdom only consisted of one house.

And then Sirius was born.

The same grey eyes and thick black hair, man-made in her image.

Watching him grow up, it was evident how much alike they were, while Regulus like his father stayed back, stayed quiet, Sirius was always at the center of attention, with a twinkle in his eye not different from the one in his mothers not a decade earlier. Untameable, unmanageable he was as vivacious and bright as the star after which he was named. A fidgety child that couldn’t sit still during lessons and asked too many questions about things he shouldn’t know and didn’t like dressing up for family dinners because “the jackets too itchy mother!” and despite reprimanding him for acting spoilt she would feel the rough edges of the child’s waistcoat and wish they were smoother, if only to give him a few more years of relief before the outside world had its way with him. In another life, she would have encouraged him, picked him up when he fell. Fed into his ambition and drive, told him he could be anything because he was her, young and naïve and this time she would get it right.  
But she didn’t, and like her mother before her she locked her heart away and let the queen of Grimmauld place pursue with her reign of terror, watching from the window in her mind as her son became twisted like her, cruel and angry, temperamental force to be reckoned with, a slice of ice in his brain that would not melt and poison on his tongue made of the same wit and spite as hers.

But he was also brave and kind. Better than she was. If only she could tell him, reach out and touch him, reassure him. “It’s okay. I love you.” Instead, she was left to scream and kick at the jail cell in her mind as the Queen tortured her son, yelled abuse and obscenities hurt him the way her mother hurt her. As he got older, the mutual resentment for his queen became louder, verbal, cold stares were paired with snide comments and disagreements would escalate in a manner that they both regretted when all was quiet and they were alone again. The queen would do her best to put her heir in his place but he would fight back with the ferocity of a lion. Finally! The worthy opponent that her idle mind had been waiting for all these years, a champion that would save her from this cage. But the queen, true to her nature, fought back with equal barbarity. She never played fair, Sirius didn’t stand a chance. She wondered if he would one day be like her, a prisoner of himself, helpless and weak, another cog in the endless cycle of abuse and tradition.

But he didn’t.

The day he ran away, Walburga Black died. It was not a violent or painful death. In her prison of bone she shut her eyes and wept for the future of her son, her family, the end of a pointless war, and like a dandelion in the breeze, she faded away.

Her empty shell sat on the throne of Grimmauld place for 10 more years before returning to the dust.

A body can’t survive without a soul.

And a soul can’t live without love.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is the first piece of work that I have ever posted on anything ever. Feedback and criticism are welcome and appreciated also if something doesn't make sense or is worded funny please point it out. (the upside of only having to write for yourself is already knowing everything about the universe)


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